


Wife Look

by ezlebe



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Flirting, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Slurs, Video, Weddings, implied/referenced PTSD, vignette-style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:35:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezlebe/pseuds/ezlebe
Summary: “What’s with that wife look, Colbert?” Miller asks, wandering past the open door of the computer room, then pausing with his elbow up on the frame. “I thought you were above all that.”“Wife look,” Brad repeats, pointedly blank, refusing to play along at the obvious bait.Miller raises an eyebrow, glancing down to the chunky laptop, unable to see Ray’s frozen grin onscreen from his angle. “You know. Like you just got something from the wife.”
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Ray Person
Comments: 24
Kudos: 101





	Wife Look

The small attachment icon on the email is the first thing to catch Brad’s eye. The second is that it’s from _Ray_ and the curiosity swiftly turns to suspicion; he grunts shortly, clicking on the email, and raises an eyebrow when he sees that it is actually an _._ avi – a _video_. He sighs and presses his lips together tightly, mouse hovering, then glances around quickly to make sure no one else is around just in case. He knows _someone_ has certainly watched it already for security, but that doesn’t give him any comfort as he double clicks the icon, preparing to close it right away with a quick swing of the mouse to the corner.

The wariness turns out to be for nothing, since the video opens to Ray himself in no particularly remarkable form, except of course that Brad is seeing him at all.

“Hey, Brad, guess what I got?” Ray says, his grin fuzzy but wide, leaning in and then back away from the camera, before lifting both hands in a wide wave. “So hi! I don’t know if this’ll even get through censors to that limey, buck-toothed hell hole, so I’ll write something out, too, but I know you been longing to see this beautiful face.”

Brad huffs despite himself, watching Ray briefly frame his face with both hands.

“Anyway…” Ray drops his hands with a laugh, grin going a little crooked at the corner of his mouth. “I kind of just wanted to try it – let me know if it sent? I’m not used to talking to you without _at least_ getting ignored, so this is a little weird.” He laughs again, leaning toward the camera with an overly cutesy wave. “Bye, bro.”

The email itself is just Ray’s normal updates: the state of the house, the beach, the bike, and the St. Louis Blues. It ends with another request that Brad confirm the video works, which just prompts him to open the attachment a second time; he ends up saving it in a proper folder. It’s only twelve seconds – he has the hard drive space for a handful of megabytes.

“What’s with that wife look, Colbert?” Miller asks, wandering past the open door of the computer room, then pausing with his elbow up on the frame. “I thought you were above all that.”

“Wife look,” Brad repeats, pointedly blank, refusing to play along at the obvious bait.

Miller raises an eyebrow, glancing down to the chunky laptop, unable to see Ray’s frozen grin onscreen from his angle. “You know. Like you just got something from the wife.”

Brad rolls his eyes, looking down while grudgingly closing the email client. “You might want to reflect on what the Internet is _really_ for, Miller – I’m assured it has nothing to do with marriage.”

Miller’s snarky smile cracks into a laugh.

* * *

“Hi!” Ray says, video opening to the camera jerking nauseatingly while he walks down the steps into the garage, which is tidy enough since the last time Brad saw it; his bike is most notably a fuzzy black shape visible in the corner under its cover. “I know you said do this sparingly – but look! You’re the happy owner of a brand new washer / dryer set!”

Brad blinks at the matching appliances in the center of frame, furrowing his brow; _what_ the _fuck?_

“Yeah, I used your card,” Ray says, turning the camera back to his face with a too-innocent smile. “I’ll make sure it’s paid back off, but figured the rewards were pretty sweet for such a big purchase. And they’re blue!”

They are blue, Brad will allow, and don’t look like cheap shit… but again: what the ever-loving fuck, Person?

“Basically, okay,” Ray gestures cyclically with glimpses of his other hand while he goes back up the stairs into the main house. “The washer died and yeah I was going to fix the piece of shit, but fucking part and labor was like two-thirds the price of a new one, so I decided new one it was – But! We can’t be _mismatched_ , Iceman, so what else can you do?” He smiles at the camera, like he thinks being cheeky is going to make up for this gross flouting of boundaries, then abruptly his expression darkens flat and furrowed. “Also, didn’t think you would even _notice_ unless I pointed it out now, you dick.”

* * *

“Homes, you have a problem,” Ray says, setting the camera on the table with jerk and sitting in a near total dark with his arms crossed over his knees, curled up into himself on the sofa. “And it’s your fucking –”

Brad twitches at a loud crack through the video that is loud enough he almost senselessly looks around the room.

It seems to have affected Ray similarly, or maybe worse, since he freezes up for a good ten seconds of uncharacteristic silence. “… _Neighbors_ ,” he finishes, eventually, shoving his hands messily up into his hair. “Like what the fuck.” His dark eyes blink slowly and stare straight into Brad, the fuzzy quality of the camera doing little to hide how they’re bruised at the edges with exhaustion. “I have classes at _eight_ , you know? And they’re throwing fucking firecrackers like it’s still the damned Fourth of July? It was a _week_ ago. Shove your patriotism up your ass, fuck.”

Brad furrows his brow when the video seems to lag, with Ray looking forward and a little bit above the camera, then notices that there is a light shifting in the background.

Ray has just gone that still.

It’s not particularly comforting a scene.

“I thought it was gunfire,” Ray admits, quietly, eyes flicking down away from the camera, then back up while he exhales a weak huff through his nose. “Shit’s fucked.”

Brad feels his jaw tighten and his shoulders hunch, disliking the useless feeling spiking at the center of his chest.

“Anyway,” Ray mutters, forcing a crooked grin that just looks beat. “Not sure if I’ll actually send this, but if I do and get hauled off like a nutcase by the VA – it’s on you, Iceman.”

* * *

“ _Hello my faithful_ _viewer,”_ Ray says, faux sultry, bobbing his eyebrows, then turning the camera to show the gleaming, glittering ocean across the beach. He sets down the camera and starts walking backward in the sand, raising his arms against the horizon, yelling while he gets further and further away. “It’s 11:34 AM and a pleasant 76 degrees on this Friday morning… _Basically_ , it’s nice as shit out. And I wanted to send you something just to make you miss Cali.”

Brad rolls his eyes a little, glancing across a swell, but he finds himself looking more at Ray kicking out in the sand than the beach itself. He’s in blue board shorts detailed with a smattering of yellow stripes, a pair of cheap rubber flip flops… And that’s pretty much it.

“So hey,” Ray says, walking back in close to the camera while looking stupid with his hand over his eyes, heedless of the sunglasses on his head. “Eight months to go, man. It sucks you couldn’t get back for Walt, but I’ll tell him he’s making a mistake, just for you.”

Brad feels a smile twitch across his mouth.

“I guess it’s on the beach, too, but hell if it’s as nice as this,” Ray says, gesturing widely over his shoulder behind his back at the expansive swath of ocean and sand. “No hurricanes or pilgrims in fucking Oceanside, baby. Virginia Beach ain’t shit, like it’s not even a fucking _beach_ in comparison, homes, just a _sandy_ _coast_.”

Brad shakes his head, imagining Walt’s flat, reluctantly amused smile amidst the rant that he surely got over the venue.

“Still,” Ray says, voice lowering while he exhales a deep breath through his nose. “Even if it isn’t nice as home – as _here_ , it’d be nice seeing you… Like, standing there all awkward around human emotion.”

Brad feels caught, oddly, by the look deep set in Ray’s eyes, as if he can really see him hours later and thousands of miles away.

Ray stands up straighter, looking over his shoulder with a low grumble. “Okay, I’m getting a lot of looks, so I’m gonna go. Don’t have too much fun!” He leans in close to the camera, finally dropping his sunglasses to look in the lens with the camera reflection warped against them. “That means don’t get killed in some dumb fuck training exercise. I’d be real pissed off, Bradley.”

Brad is clicking to replay the video before he can stop himself. “Damn it,” he mutters, leaning into the desk and digging his nose into the flat his arm.

He’s going to have to review his fucking leave allowance, isn’t he?

* * *

“I think Person finally got a girl,” Poke says, clicking his tongue, then dropping his voice flat with an edge of humor. “A _real_ one.”

Brad blinks twice slowly, hand pausing at his collar and staring down at the traffic below the hotel.

“He hasn’t looked twice at Hasser’s sister, who is frankly a little desperate,” Poke continues, ceding into a quieter tone of barely restrained disbelief. “Like she even told him his _eyes_ were pretty, Colbert – Oh _,_ and _guess what_ _fuck_ is on his phone right now.”

Brad suffers a buzz at his ear, briefly startled at the coincidence, then rolls his eyes when realization hits, as tension that he refuses to really examine seeps from his shoulders. “ _Oh_ , is he?”

“He’s got that girlfriend smile on,” Poke says, emphasizing himself with a pointed, irritating separation of the word. “You know, man, like a little – ” The phone buzzes again, then _again_ , “Sneaky smirk?”

“I do know how unlikely it is he’s got a human woman to bed him,” Brad says, pulling the phone from his ear while raising the volume in the speaker to check his texts. “Maybe he taught a pig to text.”

_6:50PM Bro Walt got like three types of cheese balls here >>_

_6:50PM Jalapeño and cheddar babe!>>_

_6:51PM I’ll pick all the bacon off before I go to town on it just for you >>_

<<Who am I supposed to warn that you’re about to end up in a coma? 6:53PM

“Could be a guy,” Poke muses, idly and seemingly entirely at face value.

Brad finds his thumb hovering over the next text, trying hard not to categorize anything of the chill the sweeps through him. He shakes his head slightly, casting it off and forcing his hand to keep moving over the buttons.

 _< < _Surprised you’re not trying to woo that Hasser sister-cousin with bad pickup lines |

“I swear, he got no game with women, but the dudes _flock_ ,” Poke says, his tone so familiar that it’s easy to imagine that lecturing quality to his expression. “And he doesn’t seem to hate the attention. He definitely seems like he’d give anyone interested time of day, you know? And he always got way too detailed talking about sucking dick –”

Brad reflexively squeezes and accidentally hits send on the work in progress text. He stares at the dim, white-blue screen, realizing late that it gives far too much away of what he knows about the wedding reception.

_Shit._

“Oh, he’s starting to…” Poke pauses, audibly observing, then clicks his tongue with emphasized schadenfreude. “And your boy is now pouting. She must’ve shut him down… Oh shit, he’s looking at – _wait_. Wait.”

Brad lifts his head to look at the dusky sky, contemplating just hanging up.

Poke lowers his voice into that pissed off hiss. “Colbert, you colonizer prick – has he been texting _you_?”

Brad grunts while reaching out for his cap, straightening it with a practiced twist onto his head. He needs to get down there soon, anyway, or he’ll have missed too much of the party. A scuffle is heard on the other side of the phone, then a familiar whiny hum; he _should_ probably hang up now, risking the surprise, but he doesn’t even shift his thumb.

“ _Colbert,”_ Ray says, low and briefly mocking Poke amidst the other man’s angry squawking in the background.

“Person,” Brad responds evenly, reaching back to make sure the room door is firmly shut behind him, then making his way over to the bay of elevators near a floor length window.

“What the fuck, you spying on me?” Ray whines, breaking the act and surely affecting some melodramatic expression to match. “Don’t you _trust me?”_

“No,” Brad says, while lifting a hand to press at the down button at the elevator. “You fell off a railing, remember.”

“Only once!”

Poke’s voice briefly gets loud again, white noise irritating in the speaker. “Call him yourself, Person!”

“No _,_ ” Ray says, laughing and presumably slipping away from Poke and the only guy who knows what Brad is currently up to ten floors above them. “How’s England?”

“Wet,” Brad says, glancing toward the window at the golden edges of a Virginia Beach sunset; it’s probably not a lie.

“ _Kinky_. Where you at, anyway,” Ray asks, his grin audible, oblivious, which oddly kicks up a particular hum of anticipation behind Brad’s sternum. “Isn’t it like ass-o’clock there?”

Brad grunts flatly, briefly checking his watch to confirm the actual time. “1:22AM.”

“Dang,” Ray says, practically tutting at him and sounding bizarrely, legitimately concerned. “I know you need your beauty sleep.”

“Yeah. I – I have to go,” Brad says, briefly covering the microphone when the elevator halts with a ding in front of him. “Give Poke back his phone, you overfed mogwai.”

Ray wheezes out a laugh. “Eat shit, you white, off-white dicksuck.”

The phone disconnects and Brad catches himself smiling in the reflection of the elevator doors, so rolls his eyes away to the slowly ticking floors. He doesn’t do surprises… ever, and takes a bracing breath just before stepping out onto the floor; he gets a sideways, but unremarkable glance from a passing caterer, who smiles a plastic greeting before passing into the door only a few feet away. He follows them in quietly, looking out across the oversized banquet hall. He catches Poke in the corner, who waves with a total lack of surprise; he’s got his phone back, though, so Ray is on some kind of good behavior for the night.

It’s easy to find Walt at the center head of the room, at a lit table that contains a frankly obscene floral centerpiece. He looks a little undersized in his blues, but his new bride, Mariia, looks straight from some kind of magazine, so his awkwardness has probably gone unnoticed.

Brad starts making his way over, straightening his back and lifting his chin – only to get strangled by a half-feral ape after barely two steps. He tenses, reflexively, but nothing about the arms suddenly around his neck manage to really set his hackles up for even a full second.

“Brad _ley_!” Ray exclaims, straight into Brad’s ear and voice just this side of piercing. “You sneaky-ass bitch! What the shit are you doing here?!”

“I had to interrogate after what chaos you wrought upon the home,” Brad says, not bothering to look back or attempt to get Ray off his shoulders, simply doing his best to continue walking forward to Walt’s table despite the proverbial albatross. “You said you were thinking about countertops, then didn’t send any pictures – I assume they’re some hick-ass laminate.”

Ray squawks in offense, jumping off of Brad to instead cut off his stride with a huffy breath, but his grin is bright as ever. “They are granite and were supposed to be a surprise!” He says, now reaching out to poke Brad hard in the shoulder. “And since we’re in fucking Virginia, they still will be!”

Brad blinks blandly as he can, which suddenly doesn’t feel like very, as he suffers an awful epiphany that what he would _really_ like to do is… stand here with Ray. He hasn’t seen him in over a year, not in person, just through fuzzy, badly digitized videos that he is only just now realizing weren’t nearly enough to really capture all this… _this_ of him _._ He’s loud and chirpy, attitude bigger than he is, and Brad is so filled with something he can’t describe that he almost turns around to look away from him.

“You really wanted that cheese, huh?” Ray asks, vacillating forward on a foot, then back, fidgeting in that barely contained way.

Brad raises his chin in a nod. “Couldn’t miss it.”

Ray exhales a barking sort of half-laugh, otherwise going oddly subdued, then takes a step away. He gestures blindly over his shoulder, where Walt and half his family are pretending not to stare over at them. “Best get over there, before he gets all jealous.”

“Yeah,” Brad says, then takes a step forward, then another, leaving Ray at his back and trying not to feel so reluctant about it. He's surprised that Ray doesn't eagerly tag along at his heels, but refuses to look back and admit it.

“Hasser,” Brad greets, leaning down on both hands at the edge of the table and feeling more looks and attention at his back, not to mention a bunch of louder whoops from other Marines. “Mariia.”

“Hi Brad,” Mariia says, turning briefly from where she sits mid-conversation with an apparent bridesmaid. She smiles brightly and waves cutesy, not unlike Ray has in a couple videos, so mystery solved where he got _that_ from. “Glad you could make it!”

“Hey, Sarge,” Walt says, his grin slanting across his face with exhaustion, but Brad isn’t sure he’s ever seen him more happy. He stands up, rounding the table to exchange the typical backslapping expected before he settles back at the table with an arm curving around Mariia’s seat and shoulder.

“Nice party,” Brad says, tipping his head with a dry look and a smirk across his mouth. He likes Walt and his dry amusement, not too visibly shocked, just a mild, contained surprise. “I heard there was cheese balls.”

“Oh, you did?” Walt snorts a little, hand shifting on the back of Mariia’s chair to gesture out with a turn of his fingers next to her shoulder. “You didn’t even come to surprise us, did you?”

Brad blinks and raises an eyebrow. “Of course, I did.”

“Not offended,” Walt says, waving off the weak defense, glancing somewhere past Brad at what is likely the unspoken subject of the conversation. “I know how you feel about weddings. And parties. And organized religion. _And_ someone’s been bitching about how you weren’t going to be here a good month.”

Brad gives in and scoffs, refusing to think about a flare of heat high across his cheeks. It’s simply a touch too warm in the banquet hall.

“Almost wish we were in Oceanside – Mariia stayed at you guys’ place last time she was visiting,” Walt says, raising his eyebrows with a nod and a reach for his champagne, gesturing up at Brad for a sweep before taking a sip. “He’s done pretty good on the kitchen; it looks legit as all hell.”

“Does it?” Brad says, briefly wondering where exactly she had slept, then refusing to follow that line of thought any further. “In what capacity?”

Walt briefly narrows his eyes, then a smirk cuts across his cheerful face. “Under strict orders not to tell.”

“Your loyalties are skewed,” Brad says, standing a little straighter and trying to look more stern in a way that’s really only half-joke; if he goes back and has to stand in some down-home-inspired monstrosity, he’s going to be pissed, and the fact now Walt won’t tell him one way or the other is suspicious. “And I outrank you.”

“I figure you can’t do much until you get back anyway,” Walt says, his smirk widening back into a grin and eyes curling up at the edges in amusement. “About me or the house.”

Brad stays stiff and stern a few seconds longer, then relaxes and tips his head with reluctant admission. And Ray was right – they’re in _Virginia_.

“It’s good, promise,” Walt says, softer, shrugging with a single shoulder while lifting his chin to greet a passing, visibly gawking Stafford. “It’s like someone lives there, you know? No offense.”

“None taken,” Brad allows, because no one really _had_ before Ray quietly started asking around about places with cheap rent in the vicinity of MiraCosta.

Brad had bought the place, run down and salt damaged, but on a nice piece of property, then taken various long term assignments. It hadn’t been a difficult decision to offer Ray the extra room, warning sarcastically it wasn’t exactly luxury beach living, though he definitely hadn’t expected Ray to start patching the place up in response.

“The jalapeño cheddar _is_ pretty good,” Walt says, turning to look at the far where a large, evident buffet is set up alongside it. “You can pick off – ”

“You’ve been hanging out with Ray too much,” Brad interrupts, pressing his lips into a line to keep from actually smiling.

Walt doesn’t have the same compunctions, as he breaks into a loud laugh. “Least I don’t spend like eighty bucks a month just _texting_ him.”

Brad ends up tugged in directions, after that initial greeting, first by Poke to gossip and then by Reporter to talk bikes, oddly enough, then after that it sort of blends together into light champagne shoved in his hands and awkward conversation about England. He doesn’t find Ray again until far after he wants to, but he comes prepared for it.

“Hey there,” Brad says flatly, setting a can of PBR down on the bench arm and sliding it toward Ray. “You got pretty eyes.”

Ray stares up at him for a beat, plainly startled, then bursts into snorting laughter. “Is that what Poke said she said?” He asks, then wags his eyebrows while taking the PBR. “Nah, homes, she said I got _big_ eyes.”

“Also true,” Brad says, flatter, popping the tab on his own can – something local, presumably with more taste.

Ray predictably flutters his lashes. “Why thank you – all the better to see you with, Sarge.”

Brad snorts and acts like he’s going to cuff Ray upside the head, then slumps into the other side of the bench, a little tipsy and consequently pressing firmer against Ray’s side than he might normally sit.

“You’re crushing me, you Viking fuck,” Ray whines, wriggling, but he doesn’t try to get away; he just shifts, and shifts, until Brad’s got him tucked in with an arm across his back. It feels like cold weather training, when they’d huddled in and fell asleep so quick in the snow it’d earned a damned note in the comments section.

Brad doubts he’ll have such an easy time when he’s due to go around again.

“You give Hasser away?” Brad asks, taking a long pull off his beer while glancing out across the dark beach.

“Nah, but I offered,” Ray says, scratching his fingernail loud against the lip of his can. “Really just stood there.”

“At least the suit fits,” Brad says, glancing sideways for a pair of beats, then curling his arm to flick at the edge of Ray’s loose collar with his thumb; he wonders where the tie went and guesses Ray probably does, too. “You won’t totally ruin the pictures. From the neck down.”

“Fuck you, homes,” Ray says, elbowing Brad sharply in the ribs, but not quite drawing him into a scuffle before just laughing into his beer. “He’s probably _glad_ you got in late; you’re basically wearing white to the wedding.”

Brad peeks down at his own well-ironed blues. “I’d have made you all look better just standing up there.”

Ray tilts his head back, briefly rubbing into the crook of Brad’s elbow. “It _is_ so much bullshit, though,” he says, mouth twisting a little with a sort of grudgingly droll edge. “My mom’d kill me? But I think I’ll just do fucking Vegas, if it ever comes to it.”

Brad feels something twist peculiarly behind his sternum, then nods with a drop of his chin while turning the beer in his hand. “Won’t know when to crash, then.”

“Ain’t crashing if you’re already there,” Rays says, his tone a little tighter and an octave lower.

Brad savors his next sip perhaps a second too long, then grunts, dropping his voice somewhere similarly quiet. “Point.”

~

Brad wakes the next morning with low level torture beating behind his brow. He pulls himself from the bed to stare a few seconds at the little complimentary coffee maker, then groans to himself, reluctantly digging out civilian clothes from the depths of his duffel.

He makes his way down to the buffet a second time, feeling more like an alien, and passes the spread of food straight for the drip dispenser. He expects overwarm tar, but is surprised when it’s actually passable, only a little too acidic, and downs a full sixteen ounces before pouring a final to take along while he takes in the room. He sees that most of the wedding is here, a few recognizable faces gathered together in various places; he even raises his mug to Poke, getting a solid nod back from where he sits with his wife.

He doesn’t see Ray, or hear him, on the first or second pass of the hall, so settles in an empty table not quite in the back. He swallows a yawn, sipping his cooling coffee, and catches Walt settling only a few tables away near a window. He wonders if the dumbass polite thing he should do is go tell them good morning, but neither Walt nor Mariia seem too concerned about their status as technical hosts, so he stays put in his seat.

He watches Walt break into a laugh, leaning in his chair and eyes fixed on Mariia like she’s the most interesting thing in the world, let alone the room. Actually, he’s been looking like that since last night, probably even for longer, but Brad just hasn’t been around to see it. He’s lit up from the inside out, undeniably happy, and so much of it seems to come from just being with the person in front of him.

Brad looks away. It doesn’t seem fair, suddenly, though he has no reason to feel that way. He doesn’t have a partner, doesn’t _want_ one, and…

And maybe that’s become a lie he tells himself, in a vague respect.

 _Wife look_. He gets now, grudgingly, what Miller might have seen in his face.

Ha. He couldn’t if he wanted, not like that – and definitely not at some fucking convoluted civvie continental breakfast buffet with every dickhead he knows and a couple strangers seeing him do it. And it fucking makes him ache, somehow deeper than anything that ever had to do with _her_ , to acknowledge now that he wants to again and knows he simply can’t; that it would take a very literal act of Congress.

“Yo,” Ray says, appearing at the side of the table like the devil. His hands are occupied by a pair of offensively crimson drinks full of vegetables, sunglasses fixed firmly across undoubtedly tired, reddened eyes. “Stop looking at Walt like he pissed in your grits and come outside for a sad sack club Bloody Mary.”

Brad exhales hard through his nose, but picks up his cold coffee, standing from the table with a nod for Ray to take point. He may as well, if Ray already paid and all, and tries not to think too hard about when he started drinking _cocktails_ or what Poke said about Ray’s numerous cock hungry suitors.

Ray smiles with an exaggerated sweep of the drinks toward the glass door that leads out onto a balcony. He kicks out at Brad’s shin after a only few steps out onto the decking, grunting in that particularly hungover way to stop.

Brad turns and looks at the table decidedly for _two_ and back to Ray, raising an eyebrow. He had kind of expected some impromptu Bravo reunion.

“I didn’t say it would be a big club,” Ray says, slumping into a wrought iron seat. He puts one drink in front of himself and gradually slides the other one across the tabletop with a slow, piercing screech of glass on glass.

Brad rolls his eyes and sets down his coffee while he takes the other seat, picking up the drink before it gets even half way to his side. “Every day you prove age is just a number.”

“Gotta say, you looked almost _envious_ in there, Iceman,” Ray says, brows going up behind his sunglasses, mouth twisting in a mocking smile before he takes an ungainly crunch out of the celery. “Walt and Mariia’s enduring love manage to change your mind on tying the knot?”

“No,” Brad says, taking a long, tomatoey sip while using the time to debate how candid he should be on this open balcony with a cheap drink. He clears his throat, taking his own celery stalk from the glass with a small grimace. “Not so singularly, anyway.”

Ray doesn’t see fit to respond for a long time, unsettling in itself, and Brad wishes he hadn’t been so honest. He closes his eyes against the sun, taking a careful breath, and tries not to feel flayed open in the quiet or the warmth.

“I get the house.”

Brad cracks an eye open, peering over the table.

“In the divorce,” Ray says, his voice a little thin and not quite looking back, though the sunglasses make it hard to really know it. “What we have here is – is _common law_ and I’ve put a lot of work into that shack. Not letting some gap-toothed English _hussy_ take my hard-won decor.”

Brad feels a twitch at the corner of his mouth, a distinct loosening behind his sternum. “Not necessary,” he says quietly, giving himself a few seconds to just openly _look_ and hoping Ray can see it for what it is, “To worry.”

Ray ducks a beat later, his neck visibly coloring; message received in full. “…So you think hussy is a portmanteau of hoe and pussy?”

Brad turns back to the ocean with a smile and a small grunt. “Could be.”

* * *

“Have I got a fucking _story,_ homes,” Ray says, predictably winding his hands up, “So I’m in LA for our lemon trees, right? After I do my fucking research, like thirty hours all told, because I know you’ll bitch if even a single fruit’s a dud, and now I know the differences between Meyers and Lisbons and fucking Pink Variegated, _then_ I choose a dippy little nursery, organic blah blah – I even _build_ a nice little stand for the truck –”

Brad closes his eyes, not quite zoning out on the sound of Ray’s pointless little anecdote, but getting close to it.

“– some shitdick who looked like he’s still on his mother’s fucking tit pulls right out in front of me on the middle lane? Like _that’s_ what the fuck is wrong with LA – not the performative hippie cunts or the no substance, vapid goddamn showbiz, it’s the driving culture,” Ray says, jerkily turning the camera to reveal a pair of little trees newly plunked into the front on either edge. “How’s a man supposed to transpo a sensitive lemon sapling out of that glorified balloon knot of a city?”

“That lad has got a mouth on him,” Marks says, startling Brad some while sounding almost impressed by whatever he’s overheard Ray regurgitate. “Good lord.”

“It is a gift, sir,” Brad says, dryly, reluctantly pausing Ray mid-rant on the foibles of LA traffic. “In the least literal sense.”

Marks stands still and mildly looming at Brad’s shoulder for a length. “Doesn’t seem your type.”

Brad looks up and feels his jaw clench slightly, uncertain if Marks means that as some assumption on their relationship, or simply that Ray’s particular brand of attitude doesn’t seem like Brad’s sort of company. He hasn’t known Marks long enough to determine if there might be no difference to him.

“We served together,” he settles on, keeping his gaze steady upward and his voice mildly disinterested. “Met in Afghanistan and later he was my RTO in Iraq.”

“Good soldier, then?” Marks says, a brow quirking high up his already impressive forehead.

Brad considers a joke, but settles for honesty. “Exceptional.”

“Huh.” Marks’ brow drops back in place with a pointed look toward the laptop. “What does he use?”

Brad blinks slowly, a little senselessly wondering if Marks is somehow referring to Ray’s weakness for uppers. “Sir?”

“His digital camera,” Marks says, now waving a finger at the screen in front of Brad. “I think I’d like to get Alia one.”

Brad drops his eye to the video, then sweeps them back to Marks above him. “I can ask.”

“Good man,” Marks says, offering a satisfied nod, then stepping away while gesturing absently back over his shoulder. “Ask after the software, as well.”

* * *

“ - really makes sense, you know,” Ray is saying, gesturing wildly at what seems to be just himself in the shiny linoleum. “And I’m up for it if you’re up for it – No, I mean, more than just _that.”_ He gestures outward now, as if he might grab the words and take them back. “ _Just_ _that_ would be a for real dick suck of a situation. At least for me.”

Brad clears his throat into the brief pause; he hasn’t even had feet on the ground for an hour and Ray’s already worked up into some real fucking nonsense in the middle of the airport. “Is there an actual subject to this winding, absurd journey you’re taking me on?”

“Fuck. Basically, I’ve put some thought into it, okay?” Ray abruptly takes an extra quick step to cut Brad off, standing stiff and borderline at-attention while finishing the spiel in front of him. “And I am totally willing to stop pussy footing and put out. Refer to: your aching, throbbing hard-on for me.”

Brad gawks for a moment, caught mid-stride and stalling out while the words replay ad nauseam in his head. “Technically, you already did,” he says, hearing his voice somehow emerge steadily, rather than winded, feeling a little like it must be coming from someone else. “Considering the mileage I got out of that beach video.”

Ray’s eyes immediately get big, taking up even more of his face and nearly making him look fake. It’s satisfaction entirely of its own sort to get him at a loss of words.

“Oh, I thought we were seeing who could better shock the other in public venues,” Brad says blandly, rediscovering his cool with a short, pointedly condescending drop of his chin. “Looks like I won.”

“You big pervert!” Ray grins wide, reaching out and shoving at Brad’s center with a pair of splayed hands that linger just long enough to test Brad’s control in this aforementioned public venue. “Soiling my good image – I knew I should’ve put on a shirt.”

“Probably still would’ve done it,” Brad admits, since the first video is also in his top five, if mostly by virtue of the extended version that lives only in his head. He would have been out on his ass in a second, if Ray had started taking off his clothes and speaking in a low voice about Brad wanting to see more than his face, but damn if it isn’t a highly effective fantasy.

“I thought I’d have to talk you into not having an Iceman meltdown about a couple aspects,” Ray says, rolling his eyes with an annoying little tut. He turns around to start back on the path to the truck. “But you’re acting like you already been there done that.”

Brad nods down the length of shiny linoleum in front of them. “Affirmative.”

Ray snorts loud, then drops his mouth into an exaggerated pout, hanging back and leaning hard into Brad’s side with a hand curling boldly at his elbow. “But I was looking _forward_ to it.”

Brad raises a brow at the fingers around his arm, then looks sideways at Ray’s wagging eyebrows with a put on sigh. “I might still be willing to hear your arguments, even if they are undoubtedly crude and unrefined even at this final draft.”

Ray immediately grins wide, exhaling a bark of laughter. “Crude and unrefined! You too good for all-American, now? Fuck that, buddy, I’ll show you how good crude can be!”

It’s probably not the most romantic first time to have, getting jacked off in a dark, over warm airport parking garage with Ray talking dirty in his ear about shit they _could_ do if they waited forty-five minutes. Nonetheless, Brad thoroughly enjoys himself.

* * *

~ _Epilogue_ ~

“So it’s been like four damned months and I’m just going to _ask_ what you’re waiting for.”

Brad raises an eyebrow at the wiring harness in his hands, briefly looking over his shoulder to where Ray stands with his hands on his hips in the garage doorway. He lets his eyes sweep up and down, then grunts in question while looking back down to his work.

“You tried to hide it by paying cash, but more than a few c-notes disappearing ain’t very subtle shit either.”

Brad feels his breath seize some in his chest and bites smally into his cheek. He never should’ve given Ray access to that account – it’s made his life a lot easier, having Ray handle all that for almost a decade, but right now, wishes he hadn’t done it.

 _“Brad_ ley _.”_

Brad carefully slides some shrink onto the wire; he reaches for the heat gun, but doesn’t turn it on, thumbing at the switch.

“Okay, how about this…” Ray says, fingertips dancing across Brad’s shoulders, as he steps in front of him with a hum, bony shins threatening to unbalance the precarious organization of heat shrink on the creeper stool. “You put it somewhere I can find it and I just start wearing it. No dumb ass gestures that give your marshmallowy interior anxiety. We can drive down whenever.”

Brad toys a little more with the wiring in his hands, then tips his head without looking up. “That sounds acceptable.”

Ray leans down at the same time he wraps a hand around Brad’s nape, kissing him at the hairline. “Love you, Snow Miser.”

Brad lifts his head, turning it into a real kiss while Ray shifts his grip to hold his jaw. It doesn’t get much further, though he wants it to, but he’s got a project out in front of him and he’s pretty sure Ray’s going to stick around at least for the next hour or two.

“You, too,” he says, quietly, just enjoying Ray touching him for a few seconds, then shifts away and looks down while flicking on the heat gun.

Ray scrubs the top of Brad’s head while he walks back around him. He can be heard, just barely over the blower of the heat gun, humming the chorus to Wannabe and Brad joins in along with for a few bars.

Brad hastily switches off the heat gun as a thought occurs, looking over his shoulder to catch Ray before he can get open the door. “No Elvis.”

Ray pauses mid-step, then makes a show of stomping the rest of the way up the stairs into the house. “But it’s my _special day_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Let's just say, I was once in a fandom, and then a decade later got drawn into another fandom with the same actor, only now with the skills to write in away that I feel comfortable putting my name to that isn't anon on a kink meme. 
> 
> Also, massive, _massive_ amounts of suspended disbelief required for this fic.


End file.
